“No, thanks. You’d probably be away off the subject.”
“Well, it all sounds mighty mysterious to me,” he admitted. “We thought Sir Frederic was on the trail of Eve Durand, and now it seems it must have been a couple of other women. The poor chap is gone, but he’s left a most appalling puzzle on my doorstep. You’re all such nice detectives—I don’t want to hurt your feelings—but will you kindly tell me whither we are drifting? Where are we getting? Nowhere, if you ask me.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Miss Morrow sighed.
“Maybe if I locked this woman up—” began Flannery, attached to the idea.
“No, no,” Miss Morrow told him. “We can’t do that. But we can shadow her. And since she is one who has some talent for walking off into the night, I suggest that you arrange the matter without delay.”
Flannery nodded. “I’ll put the boys on her trail. I guess you’re right—we might get on to something that way. But Mr. Kirk has said it—we’re not progressing very fast. If there was only some clue I could get my teeth into—”
Chan cut in. “Thanks for recalling my wandering ideas,” he said. “So much has happened the matter was obscure in my mind. I have something here that might furnish excellent teeth-hold.” He removed an envelope from his pocket and carefully extracted a folded sheet of paper and a picture postcard. “No doubt, Captain, you have more cleverness with fingerprints than stupid man like me. Could you say—are these thumb prints identically the same?”
Flannery studied the two items. “They look the same to me. I could put our expert on them—but say, what’s this all about?”
“Blank sheet of paper,” Chan explained, “arrive in envelope marked Scotland Yard. Without question Miss Morrow has told you?”
“Oh, yes—she mentioned that. Somebody tampering with the mail, eh? And this thumb print on the postcard?”
“Bestowed there last night by digit of Paradise, Mr. Kirk’s butler,” Chan informed him.
Flannery jumped up. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Now we’re getting on. You’ve got the makings of a detective after all, Sergeant. Paradise, eh—fooling with Uncle Sam’s mail. That’s good enough for me—I’ll have him behind the bars in an hour.”
Chan lifted a protesting hand. “Oh, no—my humblest apologies. Again you leap too sudden. We must watch and wait—”
“The hell you say,” Flannery cried. “That’s not my system. I’ll nab him. I’ll make him talk—”
“And I,” sighed Barry Kirk, “will lose my perfect butler. Shall I write him a reference—or won’t they care, at the jail?”
“Captain, pause and listen,” pleaded Chan. “We have nothing here to prove Paradise fired fatal bullet into Sir Frederic. Yet somehow he is involved. We watch his every move. Much may be revealed by the unsuspecting. We hunt through his effects. Today, I believe, he enjoys weekly holiday. Is that not so?” He looked at Kirk.
“Yes, it’s Black Thursday—the servants’ day off,” Kirk said. “Paradise is probably at the movies—he adores them. Melodrama—that’s his meat.”
“Fortunate event,” continued Chan. “Cook too is out. We return to bungalow and do some despicable prying into private life of Paradise. Is that not better, Captain, than searching through crowded atmosphere of movie theaters to make foolish arrest?”
Flannery considered. “Well, I guess it is, at that.”
“Back to the bungalow,” said Kirk, rising. “If Miss Morrow will lend a hand, I’ll give you tea.”
“Count me out,” said Flannery.
“And other liquids,” amended Kirk.
“Count me in again,” added Flannery. “You got your car?” Kirk nodded. “You take Miss Morrow then, and the Sergeant and I will follow in mine.”
In the roadster on their way to the Kirk Building, Barry Kirk glanced at Miss Morrow and smiled.
“Yes?” she inquired.
“I was just thinking. I do, at times.”
“Is it necessary?”
“Perhaps not. But I find it exhilarating. I was thinking at that moment about you.”
“Oh, please don’t trouble.”
“No trouble at all. I was wondering. There are so many mysterious women hovering about this case. And no one is asking you any questions.”
“Why should they?”
“Why shouldn’t they? Who are you? Where did you come from? Since you’re not very likely to investigate yourself, perhaps I should take over the job.”
“You’re very kind.”
“I hope you won’t object. Of course, you look young and innocent, but I have your word for it that men are easily fooled.” He steered round a lumbering truck, then turned to her sternly. “Just what were you doing on the night Eve Durand slipped from sight at Peshawar?”
“I was probably worrying over my home work,” the girl replied. “I was always very conscientious, even in the lowest grades.”
“I’ll bet you were. And where was this great mental effort taking place? Not in San Francisco?”
“No, in Baltimore. That was my home before I came west to law school.”
“Yes? Peering further into your dark past—why, in heaven’s name, the law school? Disappointed in love, or something?”
She smiled. “Not at all. Father was a judge, and it broke his heart that I wasn’t a boy.”
“I’ve noticed how unreasonable judges are. Times when they’ve talked to me about my automobile driving. So the judge wanted a boy? He didn’t know his luck.”
“Oh, he gradually discovered I wasn’t a total loss. He asked me to study law, and I did.”
“What an obedient child,” Kirk said.
“I didn’t mind—in fact, I rather liked it. You see, frivolous things never have appealed to me.”
“I’m afraid that’s true. And it worries me.”
“Why should it?”
“Because, as it happens, I’m one of those frivolous things.”
“But surely you have your serious side?”
“No—I’m afraid that side was just sketched in—never finished. However, I’m working on it. Before I get through you’ll be calling me deacon.”
“Really? I’m afraid I’ve never cared much for deacons, either.”
“Well, not exactly deacon, then. I’ll try to strike a happy medium.”
“I’ll help you,” smiled the girl.
Kirk parked his car in a side street, and
